After extensive preparation including FBI gemology courses, he went undercover as a jewel thief. For the undercover operation, the false identity of Donald 'Donnie' Brasco was created, with a backstory that involved work as a low-level jewel thief. In the spring of 1976, Pistone volunteered to infiltrate the Bonanno crime family, a job for which his fluency in Italian, Sicilian heritage, and the knowledge of mafia idiosyncrasies gleaned from his Paterson background were well suited. Because of his ability to drive 18-wheeler trucks and bulldozers, he was eventually given undercover work infiltrating a vehicle theft ring, an assignment that resulted in over 30 arrests and a greater profile for Pistone within law enforcement. In 1974, he was transferred to New York to work in the truck and hijack unit. 10 and at the Office of Naval Intelligence for three years before being sworn into the FBI on July 7, 1969, and assigned to Jacksonville, Florida. He worked for a year as a teacher at Paterson School No. He attended Paterson State College (now William Paterson University), obtaining a degree in anthropology in 1965. He is of Calabrian and Sicilian heritage, and grew up in Paterson, New Jersey, where he attended Eastside High School. Pistone was born in 1939 in Erie, Pennsylvania. Pistone detailed his undercover experience in his 1988 book Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life in the Mafia, the basis of the 1997 film about his life. Nonetheless, Pistone's work later helped convince the FBI that using undercover agents in lieu of relying exclusively on informants was a crucial tool in law enforcement.

Edgar Hoover, who died in 1972, did not want FBI agents to work undercover because of the danger of agents becoming corrupted. Pistone was a pioneer in long-term undercover work. The evidence collected by Pistone led to over 200 indictments and over 100 convictions of Mafia members-and some responsible for his infiltration were also killed by other mobsters. Pistone was an FBI agent for 17 years, from 1969 until he resigned in 1986. Joseph Dominick Pistone (born September 17, 1939) is an American former FBI agent who worked undercover as Donnie Brasco between September 1976 and July 1981, as part of an infiltration primarily into the Bonanno crime family, and to a lesser extent the Colombo crime family, two of the Five Families of the Mafia in New York City. Undercover work infiltrating the Bonanno crime familyĭonnie Brasco: My Undercover Life in the Mafia

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